Pubdate: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 Source: Detroit Free Press (MI) Contact: 2002 Detroit Free Press Website: http://www.freep.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125 Author: Brian Dickerson Cited: Michigan Drug Reform Initiative http://www.drugreform.org/michigan/ OVERHAUL FOR DRUG LAWS IS WAY OFF TARGET Only those politicians farthest from the fighting refuse to acknowledge what is plain to soldiers on the front lines: Michigan's war on drugs has been an expensive bust. Ask the judge who's dispatched dozens of drug addicts to prison under the state's 650 Lifer Law whether she believes the tide is turning. Ask the police chief who's spent his career taking down street dealers whether the quantity or quality of illegal drugs available in metro Detroit's neighborhoods has diminished. Ask a federal prosecutor, or a probation officer, or a substance abuse counselor. Heck, ask your own kid. As a longtime skeptic of efforts to combat substance abuse with high-profile drug busts and mandatory sentencing laws that inevitably miss their real targets, I welcomed the news that three internationally known business leaders were bankrolling a campaign to reform Michigan's drug laws. So you can be sure it causes me real pain to tell you the ballot initiative they want to place before voters in November is an ill-conceived Rube Goldberg that even champions of decriminalization will find hard to support. Good Intentions In broad outline, everything the Michigan Drug Reform Initiative seeks to accomplish makes perfect sense. Michigan should be pushing nonviolent drug offenders into treatment -- and providing the dollars to make that treatment meaningful and effective. Drug offenders should be sentenced under guidelines that strike a balance between sentencing consistency and individual factors such as the defendant's criminal history and potential for rehabilitation. And the most draconian penalties should be reserved for the true kingpins, who are seldom in the same ZIP code when one of their illicit shipments is dramatically seized. But the devil, as ever, is in the details. The proposal Michigan's Board of State Canvassers has been asked to place before voters is in the form of a constitutional amendment that would add 4,300 words to our state's fundamental law. Critics say it would establish a fourth branch of government whose members would be beyond the reach of the governor or legislators once they were appointed. Dave Fratello, coordinator of the Campaign for New Drug Policies, told me that amending Michigan's Constitution is the only way voters can mandate the expenditures needed to provide meaningful substance abuse treatment. And while he denies that the Sentencing Guidelines Commission his initiative foresees would be a government unto itself, Fratello concedes that he wants to protect reform efforts from legislative tampering. "We're trying to change the balance of power," he admits. The Trouble With Concrete I'm all for that; the antidrug strategy mapped by posturing lawmakers has gotten us nowhere. But the constitutional bunker Fratello seeks to erect around his reformers would also make it difficult to fine-tune implementation of the complex drug initiative. Framed in rosier economic times, the amendment also would mandate appropriations that may be imprudent or impossible to sustain in Michigan's current fiscal circumstances. I hope the drug reform initiative will provoke legislators to make some common sense changes in Michigan's current sentencing laws. But if voters cast the reformers' proposal in constitutional concrete, the ensuing chaos may make us nostalgic for the current stalemate. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk